12 Habits of Happiness Entreprenuers

I have prepared a list of Effective Habits of a Happiness Entrepreneur and show you how to apply these ideas specifically to your work-based performance. This ensures that you have something tangible to help you evolve, here are twelve habits that I believe Happiness Entrepreneurs adopt and which I honor myself:

1. View life as not always being fair, although believe in the best.

Those who practice happiness realize that life is not always going to be perfect and whilst this is not intended as negativity, it is a clear assessment of life’s natural ups and downs. Even Buddha realized that suffering would naturally follow happiness. When we understand this fundamental truth, we can detach ourselves from the notion that ‘life owes us something’ and ‘why does this always happen to me’. There is a yin and yang in life and when we accept this, we are free to exist in this moment and trust all that comes our way. Those who practice happiness have built up resilience that enables them to cope with the downs, see these for what they are and move on in a positive direction towards their dreams.

2. Seek learning from every event, especially the difficult ones.

Everything we experience presents some kind of learning. Our ego is quick to say that an argument or drama is someone else’s fault, although when we choose to explore the situation and its lessons from inside of us, then we grow, with humility.

3. There are no pre-conditions to happiness.

Happiness is not something to pursue, follow, seek or find when a specific condition has been met; ‘I’ll be happy when…’, or ‘When I get my promotion, then I will be happy.’ The thunderbolt of awareness is that happiness is a choice; it is something we do, right now and is within us, not outside of us. The minute we release ourselves from the burden of later, if or when, then we allow ourselves to be happy in this very moment with all that we are currently experiencing. Don’t put off happiness, do it now.

4. Practice gratitude as a regular habit.

Those choosing happiness know that the fundamental ingredient to their success formula is learning to be grateful and appreciate the learning from every situations they are faced with. Despite the twists and turns of life, true happiness entrepreneurs seek to find the silver lining in all things and use this as a way to manage their suffering as well as promote their happiness.

5. Happy people trust in what happens.

Learning to trust what comes our way is a crucial element to our evolution. When we find acceptance of a situation, it alleviates our suffering of what should/could be, shaped by our ego’s expectations. Learning to trust is an important skill to master as it releases us from attachment to outcomes and allows us to be free of frustration and disappointment.

6. Think positively about self, first and foremost.

Irrespective of what happens, happy people focus on positive thoughts rather than indulging in dramatic ones that get caught up in a loop of self-deprecation. This attitude is a choice and a reprogramming that is available to us all – starting with self-affirmation. They say that we cannot love others fully until we learn to love ourselves. Happy experts know how to acknowledge themselves in a constructive and self-appreciative way, affirming their strengths and capabilities.

7. Practice compassion, kindness and patience.

When we see through compassionate eyes and find ways to be kind to others rather than adopt the survival of the fittest mentality, then we find our relationships changing and our performance altering. If we focus only on being competitive, edgy and driven, then we attract either the same energy or the polar opposites from others. Either way, it creates a less than harmonious environment in which to work. Learn to be patient with customers, colleagues and bosses. We all have a journey to take and seeing through other’s eyes creates a much softer environment with which to do business.

8. Happiness is an investment.

When we accept that happiness takes commitment and is generally not a naturally assumed position, then our well-being is assured. Happy people are not lucky people. They invest, work conscientiously and create positive habits that cultivate happiness in all situations. Happiness is as easy as we believe it will be, although we still need to develop Good Practice to ensure that our suffering default does not lure us into old habits. We too must commit to daily routines, adopt positive mind-sets and invest in reflective, quiet time to assume a happy stance throughout life.

9. Happy people focus their attention on the present.

Those who decide that happiness creates greater returns than sorrow, make a conscious effort to focus on positive outcomes and intentions rather than being suffocated by regrets and disappointments. When we make a decision to accept, trust and learn then the…

- could have, should have gone better and the…

- what if’s and the if only’s

…begin to fade into obscurity, replaced by acceptance and learning. Science shows that all the best athletes learn how to focus on the NOW and remove blockages about yesterday or what may happen in the next few moments. They simply get in the zone.

10. Cultivate meaning in their lives.

Happy entrepreneurs take actions that are driven by meaning. This might be about attracting and nurturing meaningful relationships, to invest in meaningful daily activities that are joyful or to commit to a meaningful vocation – all of which are inspired by the heart rather than the ego. Whilst it may not always be realistic to do everything that is meaningful – let’s face it supermarket shopping is a necessary evil – it is about making big, life decisions in alignment with the heart and not the head. That said, even shopping could be seen as a purposeful activity that provides us with the fuel for well-being. Focus on meaningful more often and pleasure and joy will visit often.

11. Surround themselves with loving and supportive connections.

Happiness comes from within, although surrounding ourselves with loving relationships will help us to enrich our well-being. Happy people see toxic and negative relationships through compassionate eyes, although they choose to engage safely in them. They recognize their suffering although choose to put their energy into fostering positive relationships and so find a safe and transactional space from which to operate in those less positive interactions.

12. Embraces all forms of emotions and expresses them appropriately.

Happiness gurus learn to express their emotions and give each of them the space they need to communicate how they are feeling. They have learnt to accept the full spectrum of emotions that color our lives and realize that we are a kaleidoscope of natural, emotional expressions, such as joy, happiness, love, anger, envy, grief, sadness. Yet choosing happiness is not at the exclusion of those repressed and destructive emotions.

“All emotion is healthy, unless we are suppressing them and pushing them down.”

Unexpressed envy turns into jealousy; suppressed anger turns into rage and resisted sadness turns into depression. The above quote suggests that there is no such thing as a negative emotion, just a repressed version of an emotion that comes out unconstructively and that is toxic to us and each other.

The reality is that we will always experience a range of emotions – the trick is for us to learn to see them for what they are and find a constructive way of expressing them without pushing them down.

Emotions are a highly intuitive way for our body to tell us what is going on at a profound level and ignoring them is self-defeating. When we tune into this, we then become more resourceful in deciding how to handle our emotions, can begin to express them more healthily and, through this, lessen the suffering produced by our repressed feelings.